Where the heck is Kingdom Hearts 3?

Kingdom Hearts is a miracle. What started out as a plan for a Super Mario 64 clone with Disney characters expanded into the hodgepodge of Disney, Final Fantasy, and battle of hearts we know now. it’s been more than a decade since Kingdom Hearts II, So where’s Kingdom Hearts III?

This week, Square Enix held a “Kingdom Hearts Premiere Invitation Event” where series director Tetsuya Nomura was present, There, he announced that a release date will be revealed “early next month.” Coincidentally, E3 is also “early next month” and would be the perfect place to show off a new trailer.

The latest trailer pinned the release date on “2018,” however this is Nomura and Square Enix, masters of development hell. After what Final Fantasy XV went through and FFVII Remake is now, fans can be jaded. There’s a lot of time left in 2018 to finish Kingdom Hearts III, but there’s a small chance that this new release date will be later than expected.

At the invitation event, critics got some hands-on time with Kingdom Hearts III’s Toy Story and Hercules levels. While the gameplay is nothing new, the game look glorious. Sora, Goofy, and Donald gleefully interact with fantastical environments, trigger super moves with triangle, and can “link” with Disney characters to enter a mini-game-esque combat mode similar to summons from previous entries.

In other words, the game is looking like fabulous, and I’m dying to watch E3 this year.